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Grandma's
Recipe for Puff Paste
Ingredients:
1
pound flour
1 egg yolk
1 lemon juice
1 pound butter
dash of salt
cold water (should
be iced water during the summer time)
Preparation:
- Put the flour onto the
pastry board;
make a hole in the centre, into which put the yolk of the egg, the
lemon
juice and salt.
- Mix
the whole with cold water into a soft, flexible paste and
handle
it as little as possible.
- Put
butter in the bowl with ice water; then squeeze all the buttermilk from
the
butter,
wring it in a cloth and roll out the paste.
- Place the butter on this
and
fold the edges of the paste over, so as to hide it.
- Roll
it out again
to
the thickness of a quarter of an inch; fold over one-third, over which
again pass the rolling-pin; then fold over the other third, thus
forming
a square; place it with the ends, top and bottom before you, shaking a
little flour both under and over, and repeat the rolls and turns twice
again as before.
- Flour
a baking-sheet, put the paste on this and let it
remain in some cool place for half an hour; then roll twice
more,
turning it as before.
- Refrigerate
it again for a quarter of
an hour, give it two more rolls, making seven in all, and it is ready
for
use when required.
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Did
You Know?
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In
case a one-crust pie, the kind of filling to be used determines whether
the crust should be baked first or not. For pies that require
comparatively long baking, such as pumpkin pie, for instance, the raw
crust is filled with the mixture and the two, crust and mixture, are
then baked in the oven together. However, if the filling is one that
does not require baking for any length of time, that is, time
sufficient to bake the pastry, or if the filling requires a temperature
that would be too low to bake the pastry, the crust should be baked
first. In such an event, it is necessary to prick very thoroughly the
bottom and the sides of the crust with a fork, so that the air that is
confined in the pastry will not make bubbles by pushing the pastry up
as it expands in baking.
A perforated pie tin is an advantage in the baking of shells or
single-crust pies, for it prevents the air from becoming confined
between the pan and the crust and producing air spaces that would cause
blisters to form as the pie is baked. If desired, the crust may be
placed over the back of the pan and baked, thus forming a shell that
may be filled with a cooked filling and served.
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